The Vitals: the spot: Johnnie’s Beef 7500 W. North Ave Chicago Il 60707 the eats: Italian Beef sandwich ordered “wet and hot” the bucks: $5.32 the full nelson: a local’s favorite for Chicago’s most revered sandwich

The Vitals: the spot: Rosita’s Al Pastor 1911 E. Riverside Dr. Austin TX 78741 the eats: Al Pastor Tacos the bucks: $2 a taco the full nelson: An Austin fav for Al Pastor tacos Austin has a big rep for being a taco town, especially when it comes to breakfast tacos. As far as other tacos go, that statement needs some sense of bearing. Coming from Los Angeles, I feel confident in saying that Austin is not an Al Pastor ...

The Vitals: recipe: Al Pastor tacos difficulty: medium health rating:healthy time: 1 hour + marinade time <scroll down for ingredients and instructions> As much as I love scouring the country for Cheap Eats, I love grilling at home just as much. My preference is to cook over a “live fire”, which for me is hardwood charcoal. These days I have a backyard, so lighting up a grill is pretty easy but back when I lived in a loft, I had to ...

The Vitals: the spot: Red Mesa Mercado 1100 First Ave N St. Petersburg FL 33705 the eats: Chile Relleno Burrito with Pork Colorado,   the bucks: $7.95 the full nelson: The best Bang for your Burrito Buck outside of Mexico Considering this is my third post on the food scene in St. Petersburg FL, I think it is safe to say that I am pretty impressed with the food down there. If you saw Cheap Eats St. Petersburg, you might remember the ...

When it came time for Cheap Eats to come down South, Birmingham AL was high on the foodie radar. Forget that Food & Wine magazine moved here(Southern Living is located here as well), Birmingham is home to a James Beard award winning restaurant, a diverse and contemporary food scene and more than a couple places for Cheap Eats. Now if you saw our episode in Birmingham, you already know about one heck of a meatloaf plate and a meaty grilled ...

Welcome to Cheap Eats Buffalo, the season finale of Cheap Eats Season 5 and a huge strike off the Cheap Eats bucket list: I ate Buffalo wings IN Buffalo NY! You knew there would be wings but did you expect serious taco and cupcake game? I sure didn’t. Throw in some French Toast that were literally on a roll and you have one fine day of Cheap Eating in Buffalo. Well, enough of the chit chat, time to take one ...

When I look at the line up for Cheap Eats Oklahoma City, larger cities with big food reputations like Chicago come to mind. With a population of just over 600k, you might not expect to find legit macarons in OKC, but low and behold, OKC has LEGIT Macarons. And I wish we had a deli as good as Scottie’s down here in Austin. Well, you know what happens now. I’m gonna stop beating around the bush take you back for ...

Once upon a time Cheap Eats went to the Land. Cheap Eats Cleveland was a matter of time really. The idea to do an episode here had been floated around during Season 1. And before that, Cleveland has been on my food radar since 2012. I’m sure more than a few of you out there may not know that before Cheap Eats, I worked in Food Television on the production side. My good pal Jeff Mauro, whom I teamed up ...

Cheap Eats New Orleans was an episode I could make over and over again, because there are just that many amazing restaurants churning out great meals at approachable prices. If love food, you know how important food is in Nola and how important Nola is to America’s food scene. I think New Orleans is the most important food city in America. No small feat considering the astounding multiculturalism of New York, the bounty of produce in California or the mind ...

Cheap Eats did some walkin’ in Memphis and came up strong with some non conventional Southern eats. Just how unconventional? Well, a little bbq for breakfast may not seem too out of the norm down in Tennessee, but on a paleo friendly waffle? Or how how about some duck for lunch? And don’t even get me started on a Thai curry classic with a Chinese twist. Well, actually you did get me started, so I guess I gotta keep going ...